Moma Muji Colored Pencils Review From Japan
Moma Muji Colored Pencils Review From Japan
About two years ago, a wonderful subscriber of The Art Gear Guide, from Hong Kong named Lin Wong, gathered together an amazing art haul and sent them over to me. I was absolutely blown away by this wonderfully generous subscribers gift, I have to say, I am incredibly fortunate to have so many amazing subscribers who share their incredibly personal stories with, make wildly generous donations, send products for me to review and so many other things.
I have already reviewed one of the products that was in this amazing art haul, it was the Mitsubishi Uni 888 Colored Pencils, but there was another set of pencils in the haul which I am reviewing for you today and they are the Muji Colored Pencils from Japan or Thailand, I am not 100% sure on the exact origin of this brand. I had only seen these pencils occasionally when I was looking about Amazon or YouTube but never really paid much attention to them, boy was I wrong to simply glance over them.
They really are a simple pencil, simple in so many ways such as design, packaging and I think this is more to do with ecological awareness which is of course such a noble cause.
Moma Muji Colored Pencils Characteristics
The Muji Colored Pencils come packaged in a very simplistic tube form, there is no writing or information on the tube, at least not the package I received, however, on researching the pencils, some there appears to be a small square sticker placed on the package with information in Japanese.
The pencils themselves are beautiful looking, simplistic and natural with the barrel exposing the gorgeous wood grain. The Muji is a really slight pencil to hold in the hand, what I mean by that is that there is a fragility feeling to the pencil although this is obviously not actually the case. The barrel is a round 6.3mm Cedar Wood protection for the accurate 3.2mm core.
There is no information at all along the barrel, other than a number, which is quite small and difficult to locate, however the number corresponds to the pigment in the core. The end of the barrel is uncapped, exposing the core of the pencil. Some people see this as a good thing due to the fact you can see if the core is centred or not, however in my opinion exposing the core only leads to yet another facet to potentially damaging or shattering the core. I personally prefer the end of the barrels to be capped, protecting the inner core.
On first glance and inspection of the pencil you would immediately think you are holding an inexpensive pencil, something you would encounter in a doctors surgery, strategically placed to pacify potentially noisy children. You would be absolutely forgiven for concluding this quick assertion, never the less, this would not be the experience enjoyed once use them.
Moma Muji Colored Pencils Performance
This inexpensive appearance is incredibly misleading, as I myself was duped by this mischievously playful ruse. I am sure the minimalistic appearance and packaging has more to do with ecological awareness than just laziness in creating an aesthetically pleasing and informative barrel.
My first experiment with the Muji was to sharpen the pencils and every one of them delivered clean shave from the sharpener, exposing a surgically pointed core and almost polished cone core, this is the sign of excellent quality wood.
Next I wanted to test the pencils on a smooth surface, for this I used Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Smooth. The core gliding across the smooth surface was quite very soft and delivering a pleasing layer of pigment. When talking about hard or soft cores, Prismacolor Premier always seems to be the given standard for the acquired softness wanted, which the Muji are very close to but not quite.
The Muji core is tricky to describe, it has the softness of what a lot of artists refer to as a wax based pencil, but then there is the compactness of an oil based core and what I mean by that is this. Soft waxy type cores have a tendency to crumble, which the Muji did only under a heavy hand, whereas the cores of more oil based pencils tend to stay compacted together. With the Muji, despite its beautiful soft consistency, the sharp points remained for a considerable period under the use of a light layering hand.
When it blending, the soft creamy consistency and the vibrant pigments fused together delivered vivid distinguished results. You can see from the images and of course the YouTube video review of the Muji just how well the blending performed, the yellow and blue created an unmistakably bright green. Occasionally when blending colors together with colored pencils, depending upon the quality of the pencils, can produce muddy colors as opposed to the required and expected shades from mixing prime colors.
Layering however was a slightly different experience altogether. On the smoother Bristol Smooth paper, layering was not as good as I would have liked, I was able to accomplish approximately four or five layers. I did change paper from the Bristol to Arches 140lb Hot Press Watercolor Paper 100% Cotton, with this paper I was able to achieve a few more layers and whilst Hot Press paper is a relatively smooth surface, the cotton content in the paper allows for a lot of punishment in terms of applying various art mediums.
I did create some art work with the Muji Colored Pencils however in all honesty I didn’t spend a long time doing this, simply because I created the same piece of art on two other paper types and was getting to the stage I just wanted to get the art finished. I completed a drawing of some blueish green Orchids, I have watched many botanical artists create Orchids and I am always so impressed. The art work was finally completed on the Arches.
I also tested the Muji Colored Pencils on Winsor & Newton black paper, as I always do with oil or wax type pencils. As you can see from the images provided, some of the colors are incredibly opaque, highlighting the thick creamy nature of the pencils, one or two of them less so, but this is not a bad thing to have among your collection. For those artists who enjoy drawing on dark paper, to know which pencils are opaque and which have a translucency about them is quite helpfully. If you are the type of colored pencil artist who regularly enjoys working on dark paper, I would suggest making some swatches on black or tanned paper, which ever you use most, this will simply help you see exactly how that particular pigment and brand of pencil is going to apply on that paper type.
Muji Colored Pencil Lightfast Information
Due to the simplistic nature of these pencils and the incredibly low price range, providing you source the pencils from the original website, there is no lightfast information available. In order for colored pencils, be they wax, oil or anything else, to remain within a low inexpensive price range, the vast majority of the time lightfast testing has not taken place. In order for a company to have their product officially lightfast tested, it costs them a huge amount of money, which will inevitably reflect in their final retail price.
Muji Colored Pencil Sets Available
From what I can gather, the largest set available is the 60 set that I am reviewing, next to this is a 36 set, again in the same packaging and then a set of 12 in a flat box that you would see many colored pencil brands come in. They also sell a 36 set of half size pencils, I am guessing these are more aimed toward kids.
Muji Colored Pencil Pricing
I was really shocked when I was looking about the internet and international sites for pricing, there are wild differences in pricing, so be very careful if this review appeals to what you are looking for and you decide to purchase a set. I will be supplying links to the cheapest sites I can find, however, some of them may be based in Japan; depending on what country you live in there may be customs charges.
So when I was talking about wild prices, this is what I was referring to. On Amazon.co.uk, a 60 set of Muji ranges from £60 to £69, I know this equates to just over a pound per pencil, and whilst I loved using the pencils, in this price bracket of £60, there are much better and bigger sets that you can purchase.
However, if you head to the Muji website and purchase them direct, the 60 set will cost you £19.95 which I am sure you will agree is a huge difference. So if you live in the UK, the total price including delivery for the 60 Set will be £22.90, £2.95 for delivery. For the 36 set of Muji directly from the Muji website, they will cost you £14.95, the 12 set will cost £2.45 and the 36 Set of half size pencils will cost you £9.95.
For those of you living in Europe, you can expect to pay the following prices, however, for shipping you will need to check it yourself as I was unable to check due to my physical location. The 60 set will cost €29.95, the 36 set will cost €19.95, the 36 set of half size pencils will cost €14.95 and the 12 set will cost €3.45.
There is a page dedicated to America, Australia China India Canada and other countries, which I have provided a link to, however, I am unable to find the prices because an error appears every time I try on account of the fact my Laptop is in the UK. I know I could manage it with a VPN.
I originally thought that the huge jump in price on sites such as Amazon in comparison to the Muji website, was down to the fact that Amazon etc where adding export charges from perhaps already shipping them into the UK. However this is not the case due to the shipping time, on Amazon and Muji the estimated arrival dates are the same, therefore indicating that the Amazon stock is coming directly from Japan as is the case with the Muji site, in which case purchasing directly from the site is by far the best option due to the incredible pricing. Of course the only issue next is the week or so wait to get your hands on the pencils and I know whenever I order a new art supply or a company reaches out to me and sends me a new product, I get so excited and want the product like yesterday, waiting for gorgeous new art supplies is not fun at all.
Muji Colored Pencil Conclusion
I know that there is not a vast amount of information on the Muji Colored Pencils, they are in essence quite simple pencil, however, simplicity does not equal bad quality, far from it and that is very much the case with the Muji colored pencils. For such a set of pencils sporting plain packaging, plain but natural barrel and very little information, I throughly enjoyed using them.
Going on the pricing from the Muji website, the Muji colored pencils are a really nice set of pencils to use and a set that is not going to have you worried about actually using them on account of the huge amount of money paid out. Of course it is important to make clear that if you are the type of colored pencil artist who sells your work and can only use lightfast pencils, then the Muji will not be for you.
However, if you are new to colored pencils and you are happy to wait a week or so for delivery, the Muji are a really nice, inexpensive set of pencils to use, you will experience bright vibrant pigments, easy blending and as a new comer to colored pencils, the limited layering will not be an issue. If you are an adult colouring book enthusiasts, the Muji would be a beautiful set of pencils to have in your pencil case, again, providing you are happy to wait a wee while for the delivery from Japan.
FYI at the time of writing this article, March 2020, the world is in the middle of an outbreak of Coronavirus COVID-19 which in all probability will delay delivery on not just the Muji Colored Pencils, but anything entering or leaving countries globally.
Don’t forget to actually see the Muji Colored Pencils in action, you can check out my YouTube Video review, you can also watch the speed drawing I have completed as well by simply clicking on the relevant links. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you may have on the Muji Colored Pencils and if I am unable to answer you outright, I will do my very best to get the answer for you. If you are unsure of leaving questions in the comment section, you are more than welcome to email me directly or via any of my social media accounts which you can find links to below. Thank you so much for your amazing support and I would also like to thank Lin Wong so much for sending this amazing gift to me, thank you so very much.
